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Email sequences

How we write multi-email sequences for the 40hr Farmer funnel and any future Orisha email work.

The structural spine is borrowed from Russell Brunson's Soap Opera Sequence (DotCom Secrets), itself adapted from Andre Chaperon's Autoresponder Madness and from serial daytime drama. The voice is ours, see Voice and values. We keep Brunson's conversion logic. We strip his hype.

The 5-email arc

  1. Set the stage. Welcome. Tell the reader what's coming. Tease the story. End on a hook into the next email. No teaching, no selling.
  2. Backstory, the wall. The dramatic low point. Where the protagonist (a named farmer, or Guillaume) was stuck. Specific, scenic, real. The reader should see themselves in it. End on another hook.
  3. The epiphany. The moment the reframe arrived. A new way of seeing the problem, not the full solution yet. The insight that made the solution findable.
  4. Hidden benefits. The side effects nobody would have predicted. The unexpected ways the change paid off. Often the most emotional email: not "more income," but "his wife came back to the farm full-time."
  5. The invitation. The reason to act, and the soft CTA. For us, this is a call to join the program or book a call. Not a fake deadline.

The arc is a default, not a cage. If a sequence has a different shape (four emails, a different beat order, a longer cadence), keep the underlying logic: each email earns the next open.

Mechanics

  • Open loops everywhere. Each email plants a question the next email answers. Subject line included. Only use a hook when the next email genuinely pays it off, otherwise it reads as manipulation.
  • Subject lines feel personal. Lowercase, casual, like a text from a friend. "the day drew almost lost the season" beats "Email 2: Drew's Story."
  • One protagonist per email. The reader maps onto a single character. Don't dilute with multiple stories in one send.
  • Plain-text feel. Even in HTML, it should read like an email a friend wrote. Narrow column, minimal images, one or two links, no buttons that scream marketing.
  • Specific scenes, not abstractions. "It was 11pm, the propane tank was empty, the tomatoes were cold" beats "burnout is real."
  • Story first, then a small bridge. The story is the meal. The takeaway is one or two lines, not a lecture.
  • The P.S. does real work. Often the strongest hook or the softest CTA hides there.

What we do not do

  • Empty welcome or thank-you sends. Every touchpoint has a job. If the email's job is to confirm a sign-up worked, say that, and tell the reader what's coming next. Do not send a polite "thanks!" that gives the reader nothing to do, nothing to expect, and no reason to open what comes next.

This applies to pages too. Post-form confirmation pages, post-purchase pages, "thank you" pages: each one earns its place by confirming the action, setting expectations, or pointing to the next thing. Empty acknowledgments waste the moment when the reader is most attentive.

  • Hype, fake urgency, fake scarcity. No countdowns, no "doors close Friday" unless literally true. See Voice and values, Scarcity and urgency.

  • Generic SaaS warmth. "We're so excited to have you on board!" If a line could ship from any newsletter, rewrite or cut it.

How to apply

Before drafting a sequence:

  1. Write the job each email is doing in one sentence.
  2. Pick the protagonist for each email and the scene that carries the beat.
  3. Plan the open loop between each pair of emails.
  4. Draft. Read each one out loud. Cut anything that sounds like marketing.
  5. Surface to Guillaume for approval before scheduling.